Freedom of speech has long been a controversial matter, especially on college campuses. A newer aspect of this battle has taken the forefront — the results of biased teaching in the classroom. A movement to resolve this issue is sweeping campuses nationwide, and the Committee for a Better University has taken up the cause.
The Committee for a Better University was established in fall 2005, and was modeled after the Committee for a Better Carolina at UNC-Chapel Hill. It has led various activities on campus to make itself known over the past school year, and representatives said the committee is working to provide a forum of discussion for students, as well as inform them about topics outside the campus community.
“We want N.C. State to be the absolute best it can, so there was a need to have an organization to do these sort of events for the students and not have some ulterior motive,” Brittany Farrell, an economics sophomore and chairman of the Committee for a Better University, said.
Christine DiPietro is a freshman in political science and vice chairman of the committee. She said because it is a young organization, the committee still has low numbers, with only four or five active members. She said she hoped to see the committee grow in numbers and diversity.
“We hope to be more visible on campus, and a really diverse group is what we’re looking for,” she said. “We’re just trying to get students involved.”
DiPietro said the committee is working to sponsor more “non-partisan stuff that needs to happen to get students involved in the world.”
An activity the committee sponsored this past fall was the Sept. 11 event; it also held a Veterans Day table in the Brickyard in November.
“No one had ever done anything for 9-11 before, and it ended up being a really nice event,” DiPietro said.
Recently, the Committee for a Better University picked up the Academic Bill of Rights as their patron cause.
The committee had been looking into the movement for a while, but Farrell said a trip to Washington, D.C. in early February was what got members excited. She said while they were there she and DiPietro met the Students for Academic Freedom, the group behind the Academic Bill of Rights.
“The student organization was so helpful and excited and nice that it was what really jump-started our efforts,” Farrell said. “When we started getting a really positive response, that’s when we knew this was something that would really do well on our campus.”
The Academic Bill of Rights calls for the elimination of biased teaching within the classroom and the protection of intellectual diversity, as is stated in the bill.
The text reads, “The concept of academic freedom has been premised on the idea that human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth, that there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and that no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom. Therefore, academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech.”
DiPietro said she thinks since the Committee for a Better University’s purpose is to act on a forum of diverse ideas, this was a project the committee needed to support.
“Basically, this encompasses our purpose more than anything,” she said. “We should have diversity in our education, so that’s really what we are trying to work for.”
Because well-known conservative David Horowitz founded Students for Academic Freedom, DiPietro said she thinks the movement is being pushed aside as a right-wing cause.
“This is definitely labeled a conservative cause, but it shouldn’t be,” she said. “It’s something that there is a lot of discussion about. It’s something that’s not as pertinent here as other universities, but we definitely experience it and it’s just inappropriate.”
The president of the College Democrats, Drew Ball, a junior in economics and general education studies, said he would argue it is a right-wing movement.
“If you look at who stands behind it, it’s obviously a push from the far right end of the spectrum to limit academic freedom on campuses,” he said. “We already have measures in place if students have problems with professors. So if students are coming forth with that, there needs to be a campaign to educate our students on the resources already available.”
Ball said he thinks it is a hypocritical movement that is not being considered thoroughly, and it is impossible to give equal weight to all theories, as the Academic Bill of Rights demands.
“These same groups that are behind it would never promote the idea that just because the economics department doesn’t have a communist there’s a need to run out and get one because that view is under-represented,” he said.
Farrell said she was excited about the Academic Bill of Rights because of the controversy and discussion it is provoking.
“I think it is so good that our campus has been able to have this discussion,” she said. “That’s the purpose of what I see the committee being. Things like that need a forum for all the students and faculty and staff to work together and do something important.”
